


Smoke Stalked

by anna_chronistic



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Comedy, Gen, Pontmercying, Pre-Barricade, Subverting expectations, antics, instead of bossuet, marius is the comic relief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-12 08:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_chronistic/pseuds/anna_chronistic
Summary: Why Marius is bad at entering houses, how Joly caught his cold, and why Bossuet is not a cartographer and Grantaire is definitely not a serial killer.





	Smoke Stalked

**29 May, 1832**

It was around 7 o'clock in the morning when the residents of 187 Rue de Normandy noticed that something was off. At this time of day, one would typically hear birds tweeting and fluttering in the trees. But in this case Bossuet, Joly, and Musichetta were hearing faint noises that may or may not have been words. They could not discern from where they were originated.

"I think our house is haunted," Bossuet said, followed again by the strange unintelligible sound. "Why must you ghosts have to be early risers?"

"Perhaps it is just a cat outside?" Joly said.

"Or a cat's ghost?" Musichetta said, her voice hoarse, for she had contracted a cold recently. She was a very easygoing woman though, not one to complain of illnesses.

"Then I guess it would be a _purr_ -tergeist," Bossuet joked.

"Our neighbor's house has been abandoned for years. I might go over there to see how many cats have inhabited that place and are holding séances," Musichetta said and then sneezed.

"Are you sure you want to go outside this early? I'm afraid you've caught a cold," said Joly.

"I'm fine," Musichetta said. "I was probably going to get up soon anyway."

"Alright, then. I'll light a fire and make some tea," Joly said.

Joly went into the living room where the fireplace was. Upon getting closer, the faint cries became more discernible: a frightened tenor voice saying " _Help! Help!_ ". Joly exchanged confused glances with Musichetta, confirming that she had indeed heard what he had just heard.

"Did someone say something?" Joly asked, making sure he was not going crazy.

"Yes," the voice replied.

"I don't see you. Where are you?"

"In the chimney," said the voice.

At the word "chimney", Bossuet just held his face in his palm and shook his head in a way a parent might do to a stupid teenager. Joly, more concerned, rushed towards the chimney. It was fortunate that Joly did not actually light a fire in the fireplace. How someone would wind up in a chimney was beyond him, but Joly did not have the time nor think it was appropriate to ask how this person got there.

"How long have you been there?" Joly asked what he thought was a more relevant question. Nevertheless, this person managed to divulge his entire backstory.

"I have been here since after midnight. I came for my future wife Cosette. However, her father is quite wary of me and doesn't want her seeing me, so I decided to enter the house in a more discreet manner. This is the address that a girl told me where she lived. Thank God someone is actually in this house; I've been waiting for hours. You must be the servant," the voice said, muffled from the wall of bricks.

"I am no servant," replied Joly, recognizing him as someone who apparently wanted a mistress _really_ badly.

"Whoever you may be, please do not tell Cosette's father that I am in here."

"I do not even know who Cosette is, so I assure you that will not happen. Whoever you are, we will get you out as soon as possible, rest assured. Inhaling that much chimney soot cannot be good for the lungs. You sound vaguely familiar though. Would you mind identifying yourself?"

"That is of no importance now," the voice replied curtly.

Joly and Musichetta were rightfully confused while Bossuet was failing to keep a straight face, for he knew with certainty to whom the voice belonged.

"I believe you have the wrong address, _Marius_!" Bossuet said loudly, positively identifying the mysterious voice from the chimney.

"Oh shit! Is that you, Lesgles?" the man confirmed to be Marius said. "Please, Bossuet, do not tell anyone about this."

"I live here with two other people, so they already know now," Bossuet said.

"I'm Musichetta," Bossuet's and Joly's mistress introduced herself.

"And I'm Joly. We've met before a few times."

"Oh, Joly. Now I remember you," Marius recalled. "You're the short one with the horrid laugh."

"I can't believe _that's_ the thing that people remember about me," Joly smiled.

"Yes, that is one of the more distinctive things about you, Jolllly," Musichetta said and kissed him.

"Well I guess the three of us can pull you out. Then you'll be kissing this Cosette in no time," Bossuet said.

"Are you sure you can? I am stuck in the flue," Marius said.

"Oh no, he has the flu!" Joly said, concerned, possibly mishearing what Marius had said.

"I mean flue as in the flue of a chimney, not flu as in influenza," Marius corrected.

"You should seek medical treatment as soon as you get out of there, as influenza combined with smoke inhalation could turn into pneumonia," Joly said, completely ignoring the homophone that Marius had pointed out.

"He's just worried about illnesses as of late because I've caught a little cold," Musichetta explained. Musichetta crawled into the fireplace and spied a foot just below the smoke shelf of the chimney. She examined the width of the distance between the smoke shelf and the lower part of the chimney.

"I could pull your ankle down, but that would make you even more stuck, as the throat of the chimney is far too narrow for you to fit through. You're so close, yet so far," she said.

"I must say, the chimney looked rather large from the outside, yet I am completely stuck now. I guess this means I'm fat," Marius complained.

"You're not fat," Bossuet assured him. "Only small children can fit through chimneys."

"If that is true, then I could have gotten a chimney sweeper boy to enter Cosette's house via the chimney and then unlock the door for me."

The trio outside the chimney cringed at Marius' alternative "plan".

"Then you would get caught and the servant would be blamed for letting strangers break in and get fired after the fact," Musichetta added.

"Shit, I don't want _that_ to happen," said Marius. "By the way, I am sorry for mistaking you for a servant, Joly."

"That is okay, Marius. I initially mistook your voice for a cat."

"Really? I hate cats. They don't love you, and they knock things off of counters for no good reason. Such spiteful creatures."

"You're kicked out of les amis de l'abaisse," Joly said.

"But I am not even in that group," Marius pointed out.

"Well congratulations, monsieur Pontmercy. You have now officially been inducted into les amis de l'abaisse," Joly declared.

"Thanks, Joly?" the Bonapartist was unsure of how to take up that offer.

"Now you're kicked out," said Joly.

"Drat," said Marius.

"That was the most genius yet petty maneuvers ever," Musichetta said to Joly, impressed, before she blew her nose into a handkerchief.

"It was related to a discussion about cats, so I guess it was _pet_ -ty." Joly and Musichetta laughed and shared another kiss. "But as minute as our differences are, he cannot remain in that chimney much longer!"

"I have an idea!" Bossuet declared.

"Do you know the book _Rapunzel_ , where the titular character lets down her hair so that the prince can climb up the castle? Well just like Rapunzel, we can get on the roof and throw something down the chimney and pull you up. But instead of using hair, we'll use a long rope that we have for drawing water out of the well."

"Splendid idea," said Joly. "It will be as if we're fishing and our goal is to catch a Marius fish."

Bossuet, Joly, and Musichetta climbed up the tree adjacent to their house in order to access the rooftop. Bossuet cast the rope down the chimney whose length was more than long enough to reach the bottom. As Joly and Musichetta peered down the chimney to see if they could spot Marius (they couldn't; it was too dark), Joly noticed that Musichetta was barefoot.

"Why are you not wearing any shoes? It is still early in the morning and rather cold," Joly said.

"Pinet heels are uncomfortable and difficult to climb a tree with, so I took off my shoes," Musichetta explained.

"I do not want your cold to get worse. Here, you can take mine," Joly offered.

"Why thank you, ma chéri," Musichetta said and kissed Joly.

"The rope is down there now, Marius. Did you find it yet?" Bossuet asked, practically having to yell down the chimney to communicate with Marius, as he was quite a distance away.

"I cannot see anything at all!" Marius replied.

"Then feel around for it," Joly advised. The rope that Bossuet was holding onto stirred a bit.

"I got it!" said Marius. Musichetta and Joly got behind Bossuet and joined him in pulling the rope. They walked backwards, rope in their hands, and came to a dead stop. The three of them pulled in sync to maximize their effort in dislodging Marius from the flue. The rope stretched slightly, but alas, they were getting nowhere. They were at it for fifteen minutes, and all efforts they made in pulling him up were futile. The only displacements in the rope came from Marius losing his grip.

"Ugh, my hands hurt and I am really hot," Marius complained.

"Can you tie the rope around your arm instead?" Bossuet asked.

"Do you have a fever?" Joly asked.

"No and no," Marius responded.

"This isn't working," said Musichetta. "We might need to contact the police to rescue him."

"Please, no!" Marius begged. "I do not want to get the police involved because what I did was technically illegal. Police and prosecutors will look for any reason to press charges on a citizen. I know this because I am studying to be a defense attorney. In addition, if I go to jail then I cannot see Cosette. She could forget about me or think that I'm a con and not like me anymore."

"Okay, we'll find someone else who can help who is not a police officer," Musichetta assured him.

"Grantaire is the nearest person we know of. He is rather creative and might have a chance at solving this," said Joly.

"Let's pray that he is not drunk and in a coma right now," said Bossuet.

"Oh I'm sure he'll be happy to see you," Joly laughed.

"Why do I have to get him?" Bossuet asked.

"Because you are much faster than Musichetta or myself," Joly said.

"But I am exceptionally bad at navigation. The place could be right around the corner and I'll be 45 minutes late."

"The directions to his house from here are so simple that no one could falter them. It is ten minutes away at most. You'll head west on—"

"You cannot just give me compass directions like I am Lewis and Clark, Jolllly," Bossuet laughed. "I've no idea where the hell west is."

"West is that way," Joly said, pointing west.

"You always know where the compass directions are because because of your interest in the Earth's magnetic field," Bossuet remarked.

"Go west, turn left at the end of the block, then turn right at the end of the following block. Grantaire's house will be the third one on the right"

"Go west, turn left, turn right" Bossuet repeated to himself. "I'll hurry and be back soon." Bossuet then proceeded to jump directly from the roof to the pavement and head west at a jog's pace.

"That hurt my knees just watching you do that," Joly cringed. "We'll see you and Grantaire in twenty minutes!"

After Bossuet had disappeared, Joly got off the roof by climbing back down the tree, while Musichetta took Bossuet's expedited method of jumping off the roof that Joly was not really a fan of. The two then tasked themselves with keeping Marius company in the meantime.

"So who is this Cosette you were planning to meet?" Musichetta asked Marius out of curiosity.

"A stunningly beautiful bourgeoise girl who I hope to be my wife someday. She's slender and pale with curly brown hair and vivid blue eyes. I have spoken to her only a few times, but it feels as if I've known her for years. I am awestruck by how intelligent and kind-hearted she is. She is also a fun girl: interested in fashion, wants to be a musician. Did I mention she's gorgeous?"

"Well you won't look so gorgeous unless you change out of those ashy chimney clothes of yours," Joly joked.

"Ugh, this is all Éponine's fault," Marius spat. "That dumb gamine wrote down the wrong address."

"But even if you went to the right address, you would still get stuck in the chimney," Joly pointed out.

"Fair enough," Marius said.

"Perhaps she gave you the wrong address on purpose?" Musichetta suggested.

"I think not," said Marius. "Éponine is dim and illiterate; it is probably just pure incompetence on her part. I do not know why I trusted her with favors like this. She looks like someone who would murder you in your sleep."

"Grantaire looks like someone who would murder you in broad daylight, yet he is one of the most insightful people I know," Joly pointed out.

"You ought not to make assumptions about a woman based on what she looks like," Musichetta said before sneezing into her handkerchief. "If she were actually illiterate, she wouldn't be able to just make up the word 'Normandy'."

"Shit, you're right. She can read. That is even worse! That bitch intentionally mislead me, and for what damned reason?!" Marius was growing angry.

"I'm guessing she is being passive-aggressive," said Musichetta. "Perhaps she wants you to be a man and talk to Cosette's father yourself. Or just to be patient and wait until she moves out of her father's house."

"It'll be okay, Marius," Joly tried to de-escalate the situation. "Chetta has been out of her parents' house since she was twenty. Now she is planning to be married this August. I am very sure that things will go well for you in the future."

"That is all fine, but you must note that she is of a very wealthy family, possibly a millionaire, which means that she probably will not leave her parents' house _until_ she is married. Now that I think about it, I should have known that _this_ place was not her house," said Marius.

"Are you calling us impecunious, consul Gaius Marius?" Joly said dramatically, trying to be funny.

"That is not what I meant to convey!" Marius said, and if his face wasn't already red from the heat of the chimney, he would have blushed.

"Once you see Cosette, will you ever tell her the story about this...incident?" Musichetta asked.

"Absolutely not," said Marius.

"On your tenth wedding anniversary?

"There is no way."

"On your twentieth anniversary?

"Never."

"Your 500th anniversary?"

"Perhaps. Hopefully I'll be dead by then."

"Shit, it'll probably be your 500th anniversary before Bossuet and Grantaire get here. What is taking them so long?" Joly wondered.

"I don't know," said Musichetta. "Hopefully they'll be here soon."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

**one hour and forty-five minutes later**

While Rue de Normandy had been quite an uneventful location for the past few hours, that was going to change soon. Approaching in the distance were two tall men, each carrying one axe in each hand. Joly and Musichetta greeted them with much anticipation.

"Where on Earth have you been?" Musichetta asked.

"I got lost," Bossuet sighed.

"And it took a while for me to find these axes," Grantaire said.

"Axes, you say? I believe I already know where this is going," Joly smirked as Grantaire handed him an axe.

"Yes indeed. The outside of your house will soon become a demolition site. The landlord is going to hate you, but this is the only way to free Marius from that blasted chimney."

The four of them approached the chimney, axes in hand. It looked old but well-built, like it might take a few hours to destroy.

"All the houses in this neighborhood are rather subpar," said Grantaire. "This shit was probably built in the 1600s. The mortar between the bricks is made of lime so it is quite flimsy. Come on and give it a try."

Musichetta took a swing of the axe and aimed for the mortar. It crumbled a bit, leaving a space from where the bricks were wedged together. Bossuet and Joly went at it as well, warning Marius when the axes were being swung so as not to frighten him. Grantaire was to join in on the demolition, but not before he annihilated Marius first, for Bossuet had told Grantaire all about Marius breaking into the wrong house via chimney in a failed scheme to meet his lover.

"I really thought you were smart, Marius," Grantaire chuckled. "You know all these languages, yet you are stupid enough to climb through a chimney as a grown adult and possibly get lit on fire for a girl you have only met a few times."

"I am not stupid, I am crazy," Marius stated plainly.

"Where did you get this idea from? Saint Nicholas?"

"Yes," Marius whined. "Ah!"

 _Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!_ The blows from the axes felt like they were getting closer to Marius. After a while, Bossuet was able to damage the mortar enough to remove a few bricks from the chimney. Now part of Marius' back was visible. Joly swung his axe below the damaged bricks repeatedly.

"Damn, this thing is well-built!" he said.

"But contrary to saint Nicholas, your scheme is very illegal and very unsettling," Grantaire continued his conversation with Marius. "But you're handsome, so you get away with it. If someone ugly like me tried to contact Cosette like you did, she would call the police, no question!" Grantaire swung the axe a bit harder than he had previously.

"I suppose that is a double standard," Marius admitted. "I can see how unsettling I might look to others. It would be a lot easier, however, if I could understand women. Then I might know Éponine's reason for giving me the wrong address."

"You mead something like bind reading?" Musichetta asked. "That would be a useful power in many scenarios."

"Oh please," said Grantaire. "If it were possible to read minds, Joly would be in a mental hospital, I would be in prison, and Marius would be in a mental hospital _and_ prison."

"That is fairly ironic coming from someone who has four axes just laying about in their apartment," Marius countered.

"You got me there, Marius," Grantaire laughed.

~~

The demolition of the chimney took all of two hours to complete. Grantaire, Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta were rightfully tired after the fact (initially, Joly thought that he hadn't the endurance to even complete this task). Marius emerged sweating, covered in ash and coughing, his voice shot from inhaling chimney soot and yelling to communicate through the brick walls. Joly promptly offered him some water.

"My spying-on-Cosette outfit is ruined!" Marius whined. "I look like a miner."

"If this outfit is for spying, then she isn't supposed to see you, so it wouldn't matter what the outfit looked like," Musichetta pointed out.

"You should be a lawyer," Marius said.

"Yes, and testify against our landlord," Bossuet added. "He is probably going to kill us if he finds out what we did."

"We'll worry about fixing the chimney later," said Joly. "The good thing is that we are all safe. Granted, we all looked like idiots, but we are okay nonetheless."

"And how," said Marius. "You had to destroy the chimney to get me out. I hate this. It makes me seem fat."

"No, you're not even close to being fat. I actually am fat," said Grantaire.

"Plus, if you use English pounds to measure your weight, then everyone seems fat!" Joly said. "A pound is a little less than half of a kilogram, so using English units makes it look like you weigh about twice as much. I'm 102 by the way."

"Damn, king Henry VIII!" Grantaire quipped.

"So the English have a complicated language and a strange measurement system," Marius rolled his eyes.

"Now that you're out, how many women do we have to free who are chained up in your basement?" Grantaire joked.

"None. I don't have a basement."

"That was the wrong answer," Grantaire laughed.

"I must say, this is not one of my proudest moments," said Marius. "This is even worse than the handkerchief incident."

"Wait, when was that?" Bossuet prompted.

"I've said too much!" Marius panicked, embarrassed.

"Oh no. It looks like Pontmercy has another story that is in dire need of context," Joly said in a singsong voice and laughed his strange-sounding laugh.

"Honestly, I am done," Marius said, his face held in his palm. "I swear, I will walk into those woods and I will never come out."

**Author's Note:**

> \- I wrote this fic because Marius is basically [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHbeP1ltvnc).  
> \- I know that the flu/flue homophone technically doesn't work in French, I just included that as a joke.


End file.
